Do you live in a one of the 10 most racially segregated cities in the United States, and if so, how do you feel about finding your city on the list?

Results from the 2010 census are in and they reveal how little in residential, economic, and social advancement for Black Americans has occurred in the last 43 years since the enaction of the Fair Housing Act.

The findings on residential racial patterns show that the U.S. remains overwhelmingly segregated.

To understand how and why some metro areas and neighborhoods are the way they are, we need to understand the 5 Dimensions of Segregation: evenness (index of dissimilarity), concentration (delta index), exposure (isolation index), centralization (absolute centralization index) and clustering (spatial proximity). Each of these five measures a different type of segregation, where some metro areas do well on one or two aspects, some metro areas do bad on three or more, and some metro areas due poorly on all five dimensions. Looking at segregation in just one aspect, such as schools, would give a limited view and understanding. Now, add in neighborhoods, then a more wider picture can occur: more diversity in the neighborhood, more diversity in the schools, more diversity in the churches/houses of worship, more diversity in the neighborhood park and neighborhood amenities, etc.

Using a measurement called the Index of Dissimilarity you can quantify segregation in many of the cities on the list. Based on a scale of 1-100 — from perfect integration to complete separation — the index compares neighborhoods by race. Those cities with the highest levels of segregation, hover around a score of 80, meaning 80 percent of an individual race would have to move so that each neighborhood reflects the racial composition of the city as a whole. As of the U.S. 2010 Census, the nationwide Index of Dissimilarity between blacks and whites is 62.7 percent.

But, the biggest need for racial diversity is stable economic and racial diversity. Nothing can destroy a community more than white flight, lowering of tax bases, the destruction of blue collar/entry level jobs that help people up, closing of jobs/plants/factories in that community, as well as no new companies built to bring living wage employment into the community. The quality of life has to be acknowledged as well as the need for racial diversity.

Due to the history of restrictive covenants, zoning ordinances, white flight, realtors who worked hand-in-hand with the federal government in redlining and loan denials, and housing discrimination and job losses in inner cities, many American citizens still live racially segregated lives in the United States.

Let’s concentrate on why Milwaukee was named the most segregated city of all.

Milwaukee stands out for having “the lowest rate of African-American suburbanization of any of these larger cities,” Professor Marc Levine of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, told Salon.com. Compared to other cities across America, where Black Americans in much of the nation live in both suburbs and urban centers, a whopping 90 percent of black Milwaukeeans live in the city. The opposition of suburban Whites against affordable housing ( i.e., apartments, townhomes and homes under $100,000) on the city’s outskirts, as well as lack of reliable and dependable public transportation that would connect the city to the suburbs, causes extreme fear in many Whites that Blacks will live not only closer to them, but, that Blacks will be one step away from living in the same neighborhoods with Whites. In addition to racial diveristy of various racial and ethnic groups living in the same metro area/neighborhood, there must also be an economic-class diversity in metro areas and neighborhoods: some upper class, some middle class, and some lower class residents living in that area; some white-collar professional, some skilled, and some semi-skilled workers. It is not enough to move people/races around; the interaction and social mobility of people’s lives must be taken into consideration as well.

Not all of the cities on the list were considered segregated because of where blacks live in relation to whites. In New York and Los Angeles–the United States’ two largest cities–Latinos live in highly segregated neighborhoods as well, according to the report. In Detroit and Chicago, two extremely racially divided cities, the Latino population is rising. In Chicago’s North side neighborhood of Rogers Park, there is a diverse mix of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Whites.

How will the census look ten years from now on the racial makeup of urban areas and suburbs? Twenty years from now? Fifty years from now?

From the looks of things, not good. Too many people still think that the legacy of racist housing policies, and the continued fear of the “black threat” are things that cannot be challenged and rectified.

The negation of blackness is deeply ingrained into the psyches of many people, as the following excerpt details. Residential segregation in housing is not the only thing many Blacks have to overcome. Economic discrimination is still a factor in the lives of Black Americans as the following study on economic discrimination in Milwaukee shows.

The study offers this fictional scenario:

“A young, white, male high school graduate with a felony conviction applies in person for entry level jobs as a driver, a dishwasher, a laborer, warehouse worker and production worker that are advertised in the newspaper and admits to employers that he served 18 months in prison for possession of cocaine with intent to sell.

A young black man with similar education, work history and style of presentation, but with no criminal record, applies for the same jobs.

Who do you think is more likely to be called back?

If you picked the white man with the felony conviction, you guessed right.

This study offers evidence that discrimination remains a major factor in the economic lives of black men, and highlights the fear and misunderstanding of black males that permeate the local job market.

Devah Pager, a sociologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., sent equally matched pairs of testers – two black and two white – to apply for low-skilled jobs at 350 places of employment in the Milwaukee area and found that white ex-offenders were more likely to be called back for an interview than black applicants who had no criminal record.

Students test employers

In this detailed study, bright, articulate, college students posed as job applicants. Even though the results were strikingly close, black men without criminal records were called back only 14% of the time, while whites with criminal records were called back 17% of the time.

The study, titled “The Mark of a Criminal Record,” was conducted in Milwaukee between June and December 2001, and the results were released last month.

“It shows there’s a great deal of work that has to be done in the education of employers and working on attitudes,” says Julia Taylor, president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee. “This type of racial disparity in employment practices really impacts us as a region. It impacts our work force, and it really impacts how the inner-city moves forward.”

Pager chose Milwaukee for her experiment because it is representative of most large metropolitan areas in its size, racial demographics and industrial base, she says.

The study’s findings would surprise few African-Americans in this city, who know from experience that this kind of discrimination exists in the job market. Research shows that white Americans, however, have been led to think that direct, racial discrimination of this nature has become less of a problem in our society.”

For Black women, the future is even more dire, as the following article explains the gains that Black women made in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, have been eroded:

Despite a history of strong labor-force attachment and despite gains in educational attainment and occupational status, black women earn less than black men, white women, and white men. In 2005, for the same hours worked, we earned 85 cents for every dollar earned by a white woman, 87 cents for every dollar earned by a black man, and 63 cents for every dollar earned by a white man. In 2006, over 13 percent of black women workers were poor, compared with 5 percent of white women, 7.7 percent of black men, and 4.4 percent of white men. Our unemployment rate is nearly double that of white women and white men.

These statistics are especially depressing because slightly more than three decades ago, black women earned 96 cents for every dollar earned by a white woman. Between 1975 and 2000, the median earnings of white women grew by 32 percent while the median earnings of black women grew by only 22 percent. This recent experience contrasts sharply with the gains realized in the 1960s and 1970s when the income growth among black women outpaced that of other groups thanks to the improvements in black women’s educational attainment and the elimination of the most blatant discriminatory barriers to employment and occupational mobility.

***What interrupted this upward trajectory? Technological change and global competition increased the premium paid for skilled workers in the United States over the 1980s and 1990s and, although the proportion of black women with college degrees increased, a racial gap in educational attainment persists. In 2007, 19 percent of black women 25 and older had college diplomas compared with over 30 percent of white, non-Hispanic women.

Another factor contributing to a decrease in the black-white earnings ratio for women was the growth in labor-force participation of white women. This growth in white women’s labor-force participation coupled with a weakening labor-force attachment of young black women and black single mothers eroded black women’s work experience advantage. In 1972, the labor-force participation rate of white women was 42.7 percent, and for black women, 51.2 percent. By 2000, the black-white difference in labor-force participation rates had nearly evaporated: 60 percent of white women were in the labor force compared with 65 percent of black women. Among younger women, those aged 16 to 24, and among older women, those 45 and older, labor-force participation rates of white women exceeded those of black women in 2006.

Finally, equal employment opportunity (EEO) legislation and its enforcement contributed to the gains of the 1960s and 1970s, while the more recent retrenchment of those policies affected today’s wider gaps. In the 1960s, EEO allowed black women with high school diplomas to leave domestic service for higher-paying jobs as secretaries, typists, and stenographers. College-educated women moved into managerial jobs, particularly in the public sector. Retrenchment in the 1980s helps explain the lack of upward mobility for black women in clerical work and their continued exclusion from high-paying, managerial positions in the private sector.

The following Salon.com article by Daniel Denvir lists the 10 most segregated cities in America.

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THE 10 MOST SEGREGATED URBAN AREAS IN AMERICA

Decades after the end of Jim Crow, and three years after the election of America’s first black president, the United States remains a profoundly segregated country.

That reality has been reinforced by the release of Census Bureau data last week that shows black and white Americans still tend to live in their own neighborhoods, often far apart from each other. Segregation itself, the decennial census report indicates, is only decreasing slowly, although the dividing lines are shifting as middle-income blacks, Latinos and Asians move to once all-white suburbs — whereupon whites often move away, turning older suburbs into new, if less distressed, ghettos.

We may think of segregation as a matter of ancient Southern history: lunch counter sit-ins, bus boycotts and Ku Klux Klan terrorism. But as the census numbers remind us, Northern cities have long had higher rates of segregation than in the South, where strict Jim Crow laws kept blacks closer to whites, but separate from them. Where you live has a big impact on the education you receive, the safety on your streets, and the social networks you can leverage.

The following is a list of the nation’s most segregated metropolitan areas of over 500,000 people. The rankings are based on a dissimilarity index, a measure used by social scientists to gauge residential segregation. It reflects the number of people from one race — in this case black or white — who would have to move for races to be evenly distributed across a certain area. A score of 1 indicates perfect integration while 100 signals complete segregation. The rankings were compiled by John Paul DeWitt of CensusScope.org and the University of Michigan’s Social Science Data Analysis Network.

That’s because most black people CANNOT keep up a damn neighborhood… SO why the HELL would white people want to live with blacks? How many examples do we need of once nice white areas being DESTROYED by blacks once they got in there? Seen enough! So sick of all these excuses too.. The areas are DESTROYED because too many black people are of the criminal element! And those are the FACTS! I notice Asians integrate with NO PROBLEMS!!

I see no use in dumping the blame on black people, which is the only thing you accomplished, Ron. And of course the Asians you see integrate with no problem, they’re probably well off and they’re definitely not moving into your neighborhood in large groups. Which is why black and white people have trouble mixing in a neighborhood, there are two cultural identities present. While you seem to have vague complaints about large groups of black people (actually you complain only about their presence but give no reason as to why that bothers you (you also gave away that you were white, by the way.)) How do black people “destroy” neighborhoods? With “crime?” Why can’t you say that “criminals” destroy neighborhoods with “crime?” Once you see a black family move in near you, do you think, “Uh oh! Here comes a small, tightly organized criminal association!”?
Believe it or not, black people tend to have the same kind of vague problems about white people (Hey! you guys are kinda alike!) One thing that blacks tend to hold against whites, however, is not vague at all (i.e. I believe they have a good reason to be mad.) White America thinks it can get away pretending that their “neighborhoods” are perfect, clean, unspoiled, etc. What is beautifully clear to me at this moment is that you’re a perfect demonstration of this. Your claim assumes that your neighborhood wasn’t a piece of shit to begin with. Wake up.

Thank You soooo much, I’m actually doing my Senior Thesis on urban planning in Los Angeles, using Race as one of the key variables in urban planning. This information is very specific and needed. Thanks!

As Ron, was rather harsh and not nice at all, I’ll not even waste my breath on him.
But the reality is, when upper class white, Asian, Hispanic, and Black people look to purchase a home…they drive the neighborhood. They look to see if cars are parked on the road instead of IN the garage. They look to see if the lawns are mowed and tidy and they purchase the most they can afford without going bankrupted. So, yes you are correct…white upper class people along with the rest of the upper class run when they see anyone, no matter what color move into the neighborhood using government assistance or if they start seeing vehicles parked on the road instead of the garage. They get out quickly simply because they do not want to lose money on their investment. A lot of people on assistance stay on it, they are happy to be on it and unfortunately this mind set is also the mind set that people worry about because these people with this mind set blame everyone else and do indeed destroy property and bring values down. The Democrats are keeping these people down with the handouts…. A great man once said the best way to keep a people down is to not expect much from them….The blame game has to stop….it fosters the destructiveness of those people who blame instead of moving on. The facts are the white people of today never owned a slave but are being blamed as if they did. There are laws for large corps…they have to hire diversely among race whether there is someone with more experience or not…Assistance was never intended as a way of life….but it is for some people, black, white, Asian and Hispanic.

I completely agree with Lea. Assistance wasnt intended for a way of life, but too many people want handouts instead of working hard for it. I grew up in a lower, middle class house hold, in a prodiminately white area. I was never raised to hate because of skin color, class, or otherwise, but when I moved to a southern city, (which shall remain nameless), I was never treated so bad for being “WHITE” in my life. I don’t give a damn if whites owned slaves a hundred years ago, they weren’t my ancestors, because my family roots are Iroquois. But…because through the years I wound up without the brown skin, I’m a honky, cracker, biggot white bitch? I was told to shop in stores where “my kind” were appreciated? I wasn’t raised to be a racist, but being around ignorant people who WERE raised to hate whites changed my mind a bit. The truth is ignorance breeds ignorance; as long as children are brought up in a household of non-working family members, racists/biggots, hate…they will grow up to be the adults they were taught to be. Not all whites are racists, nor do they care what color skin their neighbors have, but we as a whole are hated for things we had no control over. Like it was mentioned before, WE DON’T OWN SLAVES!!! But we are treated like we do. And speaking from experience, having 2 degrees and a masters, I was denied a job because te company needed to fill their “ethnic quota”. So please, spare everyone the whining about how blacks are hated, discriminated against, etc. because the fact of the matter is, it goes both ways. When it comes down to bare bones, we all bleed red and we all will answer to the Almoghty Lord above one day. Why waste the life he’s given you complaining about millions of people whose minds you will never change…

Actually Ron and Quiet no more are the only two honest ones here. Rod does not want to admit the obvious and Lea plays the PC game a bit but goes on to so called nicely say the things Ron and Quiet said. Oh well. Honesty IS refreshing. Try it for a change.

I am lucky to have married a White man, a lawyer who I work for, and simply ask yourselves, as a Black person. if you become successful, why do you move to a White meighborhood?? Becase you are relatively safe, its clean good schools, and opportnity.

I didn’t see any mention of neglect of poorer (in many cases nonwhite) neighborhoods by municipalities when it comes to rendering services for residents (e.g., sanitation, street repair). Some blame it on lesser taxes taken in from those specific areas, but don’t citywide taxes cover such services? I don’t think neighborhoods run down by themselves when nonwhite families purchase houses in them. The services may be withheld or the residents deprived for any number of reasons. What white neighborhoods may do that their middle-class and lower-middle-class counterparts do not, is organize and raise their voices when services are cut or not rendered. They stand up. Representation may also make a difference (they have elected officials who will listen), but lately, representatives are becoming truly that–representative of their constituent population (meaning nonwhites in nonwhite communities). More candidates are running in elections. Redistricting is a new trick they’re attempting in places like the Bronx, to withdraw power from traditionally heavy “minority” communities, but people can fight against that, too–just as they can unite and fight for services. As for the people themselves contributing toward their own neighborhood decline, it’s a matter of neighbors taking responsibility for their property, and for their neighbors. People in inner cities and inner suburbs, now, have an uphill battle–for upward mobility, and acceptance, in general. A grassroots movement involving unity, consciousness-raising, and caring will produce cohesive communities. Cohesive communities won’t tolerate neglect, and then neighborhoods won’t become neglected. Take the power!

If you are White try living in the inner city. You will be robbed, beaten and most likely shot. Now if your White go to a small town nearby. For the most part the crime rate will be low, the homes will be nice, the yards clean with cut lawns, flowers etc. Most of the residents are not on government hand outs but they work or are retired. Many African Americans, Latinos and Asians moved to these towns and fit right in. It’s the ghetto dwellers, the culture of not working, not caring and violent behavior that Whites, Blacks and Asians flee from.

BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS · A BLOGSITE FOR THE PRAISING OF ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL AND SUBLIME IN HONOR OF ALL BLACK WOMEN. "ONLY THE BLACK WOMAN CAN SAY WHEN AND WHERE I ENTER, IN THE QUIET, UNDISPUTED DIGNITY OF MY WOMANHOOD, WITHOUT VIOLENCE AND WITHOUT SUING OR SPECIAL PATRONAGE, THEN AND THERE THE WHOLE. . .RACE ENTERS WITH ME." ANNA JULIA COOPER, 1892